Dr. Patrick Langdon von der Uni Cambridge zu Gast am Lehrstuhl für Psychologische Ergonomie

Pat Langdon's experimental doctoral and post-doctoral research has contributed to cognitive science, artificial intelligence, robotics and psychophysical studies of the human visual system. His experimental PhD researched the psychological reality of certain Artificial Intelligence-based theories of vision and he was employed by an Artificial Intelligence Vision Research Unit at the University of Sheffield working on the area of robotics. Subsequently, he moved into Engineering Design Research at the University of Lancaster EDC, working on the application of AI and user centred design principles to complex engineering design systems. Since 1998 Pat Langdon has been employed at the Cambridge EDC, where he has pursued a number of research directions. These include: (1) the properties and design of Haptic interfaces for use in accessible computer displays for the movement disabled; (2) the representation and formulation of statistical data on disability, for use in Inclusive Design; (3) Integration of software development and empirical methodology for Good Design Research Practice; (4) structure and survey of data for capability assessment; (5) comparative studies of clustering methods for design knowledge exploration; (6) cognitive scales for capability assessment; (7) methods for ethnographic and observational studies of aerospace (7) developing scales for product-capability interaction assessment in design. His recent research role has been in managing and leading the EQUAL funded "Inclusive Design 3 project(i~design 3). This project has completed successfully in 2011 after 4 years of high quality international outputs in the academic and industrial domains. The culmination of this work has been a small(n ~400)Pilot of a proposed survey of the capabilities of UK population. This has used both subjective and objectibve measures based on the theoretical analysis from the preceeding i~design 3 research into the relationship between the task demand and user capability in perceptual, cognitive and physical interaction domains. The aim has been to define the data set necessary for a full National survey for inclusive design. Currently, Pat Langdon has secured funding for EDC involvement in the EU funded GUIDE project, aimed at creating a uniform multimodal interface to digital interactive TV that will provide an adaptable input and output for impaired users based on multimodal profiling based on advanced cognitive modelling of visual, hearing and movement capability. He is both running and contributing to this work that is being carried out with EDC researchers Pradipta Biswas and Gokcen Aydemir. Due to ongoing research into assistive technology applications in interface and interaction design, Pat Langdon has recently secured future research involvement in phase 2 of the India-UK Advanced Technology Centre, a centre of excellence for next generation network systems and services. This exciting development will allow state-of-the-art research into interface design for ageing and impairment to be transferred into practical applications in rural and urban contexts, having impact in both the UK and India. He is editor of 5 books in the field on Universal Accessibility and Assistive Technology and has been involved in the organisation of 6 International Workshops in Engineering Design; has recently published journal and conference papers in IwC, JAT, JED, HCI and Engineering design and given numerous invited seminars. He continues to publish conference or journal papers, in assistive technology, HIC, Universal accessibility and engineering Design with various collaborators including researchers from the University of Cambridge and other Universities. He supervises or advises a number of EDC PhD students working in such diverse areas as: "Prior experience in product learning for inclusion; User and designer's mental models; Improving motivation in ageing software users; Inclusive design capability scaling; Modelling cognition of users interaction with mobile touch-screen devices; Mapping medical and other models of capability to functional models for design". Pat Langdon has examined a number of PhD's for the University of Cambridge and other Universities. He has been External Examiner for the Kings College London and Guy's Hospital Intercollegiate MSc in Assistive Technology and is responsible for teaching the Human Factors module for the Lancaster University MSc in Safety Engineering for Nuclear, Aerospace and Railway industries.